There’s not a whole lot to say about this book. It’s pretty much exactly what it says on the tin: A popular history of the screwdriver and (somewhat necessarily) the screw.

Unfortunately, as important as the screw is to our modern civilization, there’s not been a lot of academic work around it. So the majority of the book’s prose is the author’s descriptions of his visiting museums and libraries to try to find out as much as he can about the the history of this little marvel of the simple machines.

The best way to say it might be that this book reads like a travel book recounting the adventures of a traveling historian. It’s a short, easy read and it passes the time wonderfully on a Sunday afternoon. It’s not a deep literary work or a serious piece of nonfiction. But, it never claimed to be so I certainly won’t hold that against it.